GRAHAM — After several hours of hearings this week, a judge denied a man’s motion to overturn his sentences on assault, burglary and robbery charges.

It also appeared the defendant, or someone working for him, attempted to fabricate evidence to facilitate his release from prison.

Deangelo Deshawn Ferrell, 28, formerly of Piper Street, Durham, was sentenced to between 69 and 94 months in prison on May 18, 2009, when he entered an Alford guilty plea to charges of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, second-degree burglary and common law robbery in Alamance County Superior Court. An Alford guilty plea allows a defendant to plead guilty without admitting guilt.

Ferrell and a co-defendant, Camille Stone, were originally charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, first-degree burglary and robbery with a dangerous weapon.

Wallace Hightower went to Alamance Regional Medical Center May 18, 2008 with two gunshot wounds on his hand and forearm. He told Burlington police Stone and several men invaded his residence to rob him and shot him in the process. Stone was staying with Hightower at the time.

Ferrell, through attorney Krispen Culbertson of Greensboro, entered a motion for appropriate relief, claiming that Stone and another witness made false statements against him, forcing him into the plea.

An evidentiary hearing on that motion was heard Tuesday in Alamance County Superior Court.

Ferrell claimed that Stone was offered leniency and reduced bond for making statements against him and agreeing to testify for the state. Stone entered a plea agreement for a mitigated, consolidated sentence of 15 to 27 months, which was suspended over 40 months’ probation.

In the original case, a Durham woman said she was given a pair of bloody Air Jordan tennis shoes by Ferrell. Sesley Hill also told police that Ferrell confessed to being in “a scuffle” in Burlington and that he and Stone set up a man to rob him of money and drugs.

Ferrell produced letters Stone wrote him in which she claimed that even though Ferrell didn’t do what he’s in prison for, she “didn’t want to open all that court stuff back up.”

Hill also allegedly sent an email to Ferrell’s original defense attorney, Dan Monroe, claiming she got the bloody shoes out of a trash can after Stone threw them away.

Stone and Sesley testified in Tuesday’s hearing.

Alamance County District Attorney Pat Nadolski argued the motion for appropriate relief be denied.

Nadolski, who handled the case when it was originally heard, said Stone wasn’t offered a deal for her testimony or statements.

In court documents, her defense attorney, Robert Martin, was quoted as saying there was “no quid pro quo at that time or any other.”

Page 2 of 2 - Nadolski also argued that Stone wrote a letter to Ferrell on May 5, 2009 — before he entered into the plea agreement — allegedly recanting her statements and saying she just wanted to get out of jail. Ferrell knew about Stone’s statements and letters before he entered the plea.

Hill offered the most striking testimony in the hearing.

Burlington police followed up on Hill’s original statements and presented her with the alleged email exculpating Ferrell, court documents showed.

Hill denied writing that email and said the email address didn’t belong to her. Police later found the account had been set up the day the email was written and sent, Nadolski wrote.

Hill also said that Ferrell had asked her to say she lied to the police in the 2008 investigation. At some point, while incarcerated, Ferrell also tried to contact her through Facebook. Hill denied his messages.

Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 2012, an “unknown black male came to her door and handed her a cell phone.” Ferrell was on the other end, telling her to recant her statements. He also allegedly offered her $1,000 to recant. Hill hung up on him. She was told someone else would be visiting her if she didn’t recant, Hill told investigators.

At the close of the hearing, Superior Court Judge James E. Hardin Jr. denied the motion for appropriate relief.

Ferrell’s projected release date is Feb. 18, 2016, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety website.